Speakers Slam Plan To Sell Historic Wethersfield Home

March 20, 2014|By CHRISTOPHER HOFFMAN, Special to The Courant, The Hartford Courant

WETHERSFIELD -- Public speakers at his week's town council meeting condemned a Republican proposal that the town consider selling the historic Deming-Standish House in Old Wethersfield.

"This architectural treasure rightly belongs to Wethersfield's citizens and to posterity," said Leigh Standish, whose ancestors donated the 1787 home to the town in the late 1920s.

Standish vowed to "win public support for opposition this move" if the council tried to sell the house, which is now occupied by Lucky Lou's Bar and Grill.

Candace Holmes, president of the Wethersfield Historical Society, strongly defended her organization's role in managing the home. Under a 50-year lease, the society pays the town $1 a year and then rents the building, using the proceeds for its programs.

"Our relationship with the town as keeper of their historic properties has served the town well for years," Holmes said. "There is no reason to risk the future of the buildings or the viability of the historic district or to engender a chilling effect on possible future gifts."

About eight people spoke on the issue, all of them opposed to selling the house.

Republican Councilman Stathis Manousos, who raised the possibility of selling the house earlier this month, defended his proposal and called for town officials to study the idea. The town must still pay for repairs and upkeep at the home, which has long been a commercial property, he noted. He questioned whether taxpayers should bear that expense.

"We're not saying, let's sell this thing tomorrow, but it's our responsibility to analyze it as taxpayers," Manousos said. "I think we need to understand the magnitude of this problem before we spend any more taxpayer money and we hear what are the possible options."

Manousos has said that the town could replace the rent the Historical Society earns from the home with a direct subsidy.

Manousos and fellow Republicans voted earlier this month against seeking a $496,000 state grant to improve handicapped accessibility and make other repairs at the house. The motion passed 5-4 on a party line vote.

Democratic Mayor Paul Montinieri said that the idea of selling the house has been discussed and majority Democrats will not support it. In addition to the home's historical significance, selling the house would not make fiscal sense, he said. The town doesn't spend $40,000 a year in maintenance, but that's how much taxpayers would have to pay the historical society to make up for lost rent, he said.

"The bottom line on it is it's my opinion that it's not a prudent consideration," Montinieri said. "You can't measure it entirely in dollars and sense. You have to look at what the building means to the entire (historic) district."

One resident, Andrew Sanzaro, submitted written comments in support of selling the house, but he did not appear at this week's meeting. He expressed anger at taxpayer funds being used to keep up a building housing a private business.

"In this economy most of us curtail, and cut back, but you allow taxpayer money to filter in to the maintenance and upkeep, with nothing in return except a 'gem' of a business?" Sanzaro wrote.